« Stuff You Missed in History Class

SYMHC Classics: The Rite of Spring Riot

2022-01-29 | 🔗

Riots are a distressingly common part of human history, and the strangest events can trigger widespread violence. In this 2011 episode, previous hosts Deblina and Sarah take a closer look at one of history's strangest riots.

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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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wherever you get your podcast, hey guys, this Brian Foot CU of humble and hosting the new, humble nation podcast as a recent public company, we're seeing interest in Blockchain Mobile payments, ticketing and, if teaser growing faster than ever and what we call the digital economy so join me alone high gas from the world, a prosperous music, entertainment and other industries, as who talk about how technologies like blockchain, are shaping their world hours and get ahead for all of us in the digital economy. Only an nation hello, unhappy Saturday, I'm Tracy, B Wilson and I'm Holly fry. Not long ago, we read email from firm listener, EVA who was responding to our episode on the nutcracker and suggested we do something similar about the right of spring,
I mentioned that former host of the show had done one on the right of spring riot and I was not sure how far it went beyond the right itself. Cuz. I hadn't listened to it in a while. Now I have listened to it. I think maybe I had not listened to it ever, because it's a lot of it felt like new information to me. The episode does indeed talk about Rite of Spring as a piece of music. That's influences on both music and ballet, so we are pulling it out for today, Saturday Classic. This is from previous hosts, Sarah and Deblina, and it came out on Twenty nine! Twenty eleven welcome to stuff. You missed in history class, a production of I radio
let alone to cast unfair daddy and I'm going to check the boarding, and today we're gonna be doing a listener. Suggestion danced each Emily Road and to suggest that we cover the ballet Ruth and she's dead. She couldn't guarantee us an exclamation. She knows that's one of our favorite topics. That long have banned, but she also said that the material really sold itself. There are great dancers, their great composers, there's an influential impresario plus there. Let us candles and mental breakdown thin some pretty salacious performances to the afternoon of the fawn. I think, that's all I have to say there if you he know about dance. If you don't, you can go. Look that went up on yours on your own if she's not going to get into the details, but what we got drawn into was the promise of a riot here. We, you know how we love those on me. Twenty nine nineteen thirteen. There is a riot during the debut of the right of spring, and this was different from the last hour
his stick riot that we podcast it on. You may remember the Astor Place Riot and thou in wasn't about the work which was Macbeth I believe the lander question. It was about the rivalry rather between the two actors about class conflict and about anglo american tensions as well yeah. This, when, though, is about the work, it's the premier, it's about the dance and the music and even the ass, tombs, get people enrage all shockingly and at the time, disturbingly different and new to the audience. That was what set them off in the first place, but before we get to the people involved, we're gonna be talking about a few of them, the composer, the choreographer, the patron of the arts. We mentioned or before we start talking about the work. Just try to imagine a piece of music and a dance that just was so our side, the norm so outside of what you are used to that end. Infuriated you to the point of getting out of your plush red sea and screaming at this stage, and and
adding, really really upset yelling and causing a ruckus. I mean just just try to get that mindset for we get going once you have that going we'll start off with a little bit of background. So when the right of bring premier. All indications suggested that it would be a huge head first and. Foremost it was written by young superstar, composer egoists, driven ski I'm sure many of you have heard of him. It was choreographed by the beloved dancer Vasile Orphanages, ski and, of course it was staged by the hottest ballet company in Europe at the time the ballet Ruth a complete ash than Sir J D uncle of started at five years before the sky, and because he is the man who founded the company and because he brought together the people who were involved in creating the right of Spring Valley. Fitting we talk about him. I really think that all. Three of those men we mentioned could be their own podcast subjects. They have very interesting lies, but condemn a little because retiring mother riot, not everybody involved, but denial of was born.
in Russia, in eighteen. Seventy two to landed nobility and He had a guess kind of sad start to life. His mother died only a few weeks after he was born. His father was a colonel of, but his step mother really was an influential presence in his life. She encouraged his artistic inclinations, and he had a really happy luxurious at bringing the family, for instance, had an apartment in Saint Petersburg, a country state and a provincial twenty re mansion and they were really friendly and open. They hosted people, they had folks living with them. I think I sign one account. either the stated the twenty room Mansion had at an outdoor table a porch table that seated fifty. So you can imagine the kind of upbringing this this man Yeah and his family was really generous, but unfortunately that generosity caught up to them they went bankrupt and Diego I've had to support them while studying law, but he also endorse
in his artistic side once in a while, he started hanging out with a group of sophisticates. He met through his cousin, slash boyfriend, not something think Harrison Ashikaga. So this group made up some of the core member the eventual ballet ruse so after grow we should in the Algarve, decided he would become a composer instead of a lawyer. He would follow his dreams, see that artistic inclination, and at this time one of the pre eminent russian composers was Nickolay Room, Ski Corsica and classical music fans will know him as one of the five or the mighty handful. A group of young composers who decades earlier had tried to get russian music back to its roots. They took inspiration from things like russian folk lore in fairy tales and they scored the imperial ballets and operas yeah. So Diego's got this meeting with rims Chiquita. Kokoo at this point is sort of the godfather of russian Music and he has his work completely deaf
ass by this, this old master, and he does to stick out for himself a little bit. I think he had actually is kind of smart heat. I mean, and I mean that in a bad way, he I think he tell them you're going to regret what you said. It's going to be printed in your bag, Rafi, someday and you'll, be so embarrassed and by then it'll be too late to take it back. So I mean just imagine this young man, MR to the master, but he did stop composing. So I guess he took the lesson to heart. Douglas decided that was not his career track, probably for the best, because his true talent lay in management, hated, How did he become a patron of the arts? Not an artist, though, of course he had sir can't be clever about that because he was not a wealthy man anymore. If you're gonna be a patron of the arts and have your own money, you ve gotta be resourceful. Yes, so after a few years, Of staging artistic exhibitions and Russia and a job at the then bureaucratic imperial Theatre, he kiss show on the road for one thing, he do this work,
the reasons for one thing he was patriotic. He wanted Europe to know his country, but he also knew that, just as all things French were all the rage and Russia. At the time, provisions were also enchanted by the idea of old Russia, its obvious as is its exoticism, and so he thought that it would be an easy sal here. They had a romantic idea of what Russia was or what it is still. So, in Eighteen, O nine, the angle of pulled the best dancers from Russia, inform the ballet Ruth and the companies early years really capitalized on that perception of Russia as exotic and romantic. And if you look up some pictures from the costumes, for instance, of this
you can you can tell that the flyers there very there almost erotic in some cases, and the pity me of that- a static that romantic exotic aesthetic was the company's principle, dancer, boss, Love Newton Ski and he eventually became Douglas Lover and Logistic. He was the son of dancers, though he had grown up in this environment and he was really famous for his leaps, almost like he could fly. So when he d be and in Paris and in the rest of Europe is, unlike anything, people had ever seen before, and I mean the same goes for many of the other dancers and the company, but Mc Ginnis Particular really stood out
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the area handed stone locations to purchase or check out their exclusive online gift card, sale, visit hand and stone downtown slash locations to find the spot nearest EU restrictions apply C span for details, hello, barents- it is Mr Jim, and did you know it's time? First story time, my ipod gas, kids short stores was created for our own kids. You see my wife love the stories I was saying to them at bedtime and she wanted me word cord them so that they could listen to them in the car or maybe during quiet time. It's now been downloaded millions of times by kids all around the world We turned their ideas into amazing adventures. You see kid sending
Their story, ideas and then I create an awesome adventure about them, maybe they're stopping the bad guy, binding lost treasure or writing for her unicorn through the clouds with the new adventure every single day. We have a lot of fun together and it also decrease the screen time, which we all know that battle. Well, my friend search for me, Mister, Jim Orchid, short stories. So listen kid short stories in the I hurt app Apple podcast or wherever you get your pod. Are you guys guys ready for today's adventure? Meteor? Let's go. The third member of our trio also came in here at the beginning of this whole story of the ballet ruse. He was also young and also obviously russian eager striven ski striven ski was the son of a famous operatic base and he had grown up just behind the imperial theatres.
Canada Auspicious placed a girl that you're interested in music. I guess he took piano and music theory and his house was filled with music and theatre to, but still when it was time for school. He studied law and philosophy. That seems to be a theme here. The study of law lies would be lawyer, but while at Saint Peter, again oversee he showed some of Sir Leon works to someone that we have heard of before the father of a fellow student, none other than room ski Corsica of so rosy, Corsica gave him a better reaction than he had given to Diego love and actually took him on. His report students just return a little butter there for him definitely will stir Vinci, obviously displayed some more talent, composing, but room ski course cover also helped him get some gigs going to so he started having performances started. Having his music perform and the Algarve came into the picture in nineteen o nine when he attended one of these performances and herds, Trimmin Skis Music and decided. He wanted to commission him right away.
for the ballet roofs summaries and forgot the music for that, and then for the nineteen ten season. He commission the Firebird, and I mean, of course this is play one of the most famous ballets. It's it's absolutely one that staged by most companies, I think pretty frequently re area, even my valet come. I was in North EAST Alabama. When I was growing up, did a production of the Firebird every year? Were you in the fire parent? Now I wasn't in it. I wasn't enough crackers ok, I cant figure of different companies are completely different, ballet, never mind moving on, but anyway. This made striven ski blow up overnight and then the next year it was another hit for him and the ballet roofs with Patricia and and this one didn't ski danced the lead, but all the while well, servants gives working on Patricia he's, also working on something something that has a very modern founders, we're gonna, learn, but something that ancient too certainly has ancient route. So
gonna have to go back again a little bit too, to explain. Striven ski also wanted to make something uniquely russian. He was also patriotic like Ramsgate Course, the cover dog love and he really liked fairy tales and russian legends, especially though he had grown up summarizing in a small village called us to look and villagers would still come out and celebrate the harvest in the planting during during his youth and they'd, celebrate with festival of and dances, and they would sing songs with their untrained voices and play homemade instruments and really just have a good time. And be produced a very unique found that sort of captivated Kaminski. So he rode the right of sprang to try to capture that celebratory chaos. Even though in the ballets case. It's not just a harvest vessel. It's not it's not entirely happy occasion, it's a pagan human sacrifice, spoiler in
few. You didn't know what happened at the end of the right of spring. We gotta mentioning the chosen one, who is a young maiden dances herself to death. So it's a disturbing story. of of celebration yeah and to achieve that haphazard, distorted sound of the celebration and to imitate the trained voices and the homemade instruments, still ski knew. He'd have to manipulate the traditional instruments of the orchestra, so he paired them up an odd com bows. He would have one group played triplets, while the other one played quadruplicates and memorably, he moved some of the instruments so far outside of their range. They became unrecognizable. So those are just a few things he did to achieve that really unique sound and here's what the Paris audience of the nineteen thirteen premier first heard
So that's a very unusual found and a composer who was in attendance at the premier Camille so far basically said: what is that? What instrument is that in his seat may told him it's the bassoon and so far is supposedly so scandalised by this information. He reportedly sad. If that is the pursuit, and I am a baboon and walked out of them, did not like hearing the bassoon played in this area. Unusual register at all one that wasn't even the only instrument that people had trouble with. There were some other strange sounding instruments that chimed in as well. There was an english horn and e flat clear net, a base, clarinet and actually a contemporary San Francisco symphony musician has described the sound as a quote jungle. Just to give you an idea of what it with the impressions might have been like, so people were hissing.
started to yell somewhere cheering a few folks like TAT, they they wanted to keep hearing it then the first dance, tat, open and the music made a kind of terrifying transition yeah so that's scary staff and you ve just heard the music, but we're going to talk about the dance you. What was going on on stage with this pounding frightening music, the dancers weren't Philippe fully pirouetting about they were grouped in a circle there, jumping up and down with both feet together and it looks painful. It looks very violent and a the answer later, called quotes with every leap? We landed heavily enough to jar every organ in us in it, and it looks like that. It looks heavy and uncomfortable, but because the dancers were also doing this, move where they rest their heads on their hands and and switch hands and and pitch their heads back and forth. Some people start
Shouting get them a dentist, so people were were not only upset by what they were hearing the strange bassoon noise and and all of that, but what they were seeing and a third issue was the costumes. The dancers were wearing these scanty form, filling costumes that you know some people have time we're going to the ballet to see that you know they wanted to see dancers, and see that lies at the pretty. Let you know the really beautiful custody Hamley said that the two to a kind of get up, and these folks were wearing tuna eggs. They were wearing long, fake braid, they had padded lace, lag him and you can look up these costumes, as I mentioned, but the best way to picture is almost like buckskins thereof: they'd they dont, let graceful. They look very
primitive and people they hated it. They did not like that aspect of instruments. Key panic to this point. He starts to head backstage Diego love and, for his part, flashes, the house lights at this point trying to calm people down, but the Org strict, kept playing and young must have guessed that something like this would go down. He he hadn't mentioned that fear too. Da Vinci or a jiffy at all, but he had told the conductor, Pierre Montoni, to keep playing no matter. What, though, The orchestra just keeps on playing the music, which must have been difficult, because there are some crazy rhythms and the right of spray I have to imagine it would be tough to play. If, if you couldn't here what you are playing, but that was the only problem. I mean what about the dancers they couldn't hear either in and makes it pretty hard to dance. If you can't hear the beat of the music so now Ski got on a chair and leaned out to call off the numbers, yes from biotic, accounting for them and striven ski held,
Coattails to keep him from falling. You is leaned that far out her guys is broken. C of humble and also the new combination podcast. As recently power company, we're seeing interests in blocking mobile pay. ticketing and of teaism more growing, fast and ever and what we call the digital economy so join me alone. high profile, gas from the world of prosperous music, entertainment and other industries whose Utah How technologies like blockchain, shaping their rob hours in the decades ahead for all in the digital economy. Only on obligation, speaking of renaissance women, we are here with the great Gabby Thomas, the newest rock. star on the? U S, track and field and global track and field seen and heard it's just amazing what you're, what you're tribute into your time on earth is just amazing academically athletic. We as a person you give off great vibe and you're, obviously a good contributor to
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The digital economy, only an obligation and the police were, of course, call them, and there is a really good quote. I think from harboured Professor Thomas Kelly, describing the fact of the matter on the audience he said the Pagans onstage made pagans of the audience and it may we have to wonder who were these people what this is now a classic piece of music? It's it's a ballet that was certainly influential. Who are the people who just couldn't stand it and it was
long assume that they were just kind of old fogey, you know they wanted to see, like we mentioned earlier, that the classic to two in and the pirouetting. But people didn't go to the ballet routes for that kind of experience. Anyway, and recently, one of the latest biographies on dialogue has shaken up that assumption that that these were the old fellow. he said that they were actually the the avant garde, the people who were at the head of Trans, but they felt like this piece of music. This stance just eclipsed. Even then they didn't want to get left behind so violent. They were one Upton, Aegina Cigar, so of course, right of spring doesn't sound quite so shocking, now mats because a lot of later twentieth century music was influenced by it. Pbs actually host this great series by the San Francisco Symphony called keeping score and fair, and I both why step and the programme call ski score and artistic revolution, something that redefined twin a century music and one of the sun,
symphony musicians, even called it rock and roll, and I think why it doesn't sound so shocking to us now. It's because it is very familiar. You you'll recognize it and later classical music, but in other music forms to I mean, even if you don't listen to anything, that's rock and roll, I mean it clearly has an effect on on where music went for the the rest of the century, and it certainly defiance These were coming after this. The Firebird might have made maiden blow up overnight, but this defined his career and he did it go on to enjoy a very long career polyte, making this even more impressive that he had something like this so early on. He went on composing in the fifties and sixtys. He started composing twelve tone, music em. He lived until the nineteen seventies. Actually, though, recordings we there were conducted by striven ski and this work didn't just info. Music. It also influence choreography as well. The choreography of
here was really influential. I mean if you look at it, looks like modern dance. That's what I thought when I first read about this as well as well, when you see it, I mean the costumes, the movements, everything kind of reminds you of that, but because the right of spring was only proof eight times and because indigent ski had a mental breakdown at age, twenty nine and ended up spending the rest of his life in out of asylums. The choreography was until recently resumed lost year in nineteen. Eighty seven, though we have this really interesting sort of forensic dance story. The jaw ballet restored regional choreography and they brought in a dance historian and art historian and those two drew from reviews and from dancers quotes and from drawings and photos, and even from Striven Skis notes on the stage direction which had sort of general instructions like their this many groupings on the stage, but not exactly what they were doing to to get that information. They finally found this score
choreographed notes- and it was discovered in nineteen eighty two and to me, the idea of reconstructing a dance is so it's almost impossible for Meda to comprehend that's one of those instances where history and art meat so clearly I think it's really fascinating, but when watching the restored ballet, you also get a peek at what the costumes would have looked like an action. They were designed by Nicholas Rhetoric and they look primitive but also really modern. At the same time and the fact that peace, would go to such trouble to restore a ballet really just speak to the effect any import if the ballet roofs on dance. Yet after the battle of staff and nineteen, twenty nine, the the belly Ruth disbanded think it almost immediately, but his employees branched out across the world to start some of the pre eminent companies of today, the American Ballet Theatre, New York City, ballet San Francisco, ballet they're, all direct descendants from the ballot
use as our companies everywhere so listener, Emily, who we mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, so that there would be no exclamation and a story, but there actually is one of sorts. In February of this, here. The BBC reported that some footage of the ballet reuse The only known footage that is had been discovered mislaid in an online archive and Diego I mean the reason there was no footage before us because he had prohibited filming of the ballet, since he didn't think that it could do his, minced justice, so this There are two stake: exclamation, there's no body involved, but some dance close enough. I'm I was pleased by by discovering this and getting to watch it. It's a rehearsal. So it's it's not it's not the right of sprang its. It is the nice costumes and it looks very proper still is the ballet roofs and it's all we got, and I just want to mention. Even if you haven't you ever seen this
ballet or you don't believe in God, a ballet or listen to classical music. You probably are familiar here with the right of spring, because it is maybe most famously associated with Walt Disney spanned Asia. There is, of course, a lie: extended sequence of the right of sprang with the dinosaurs, the you know, it's kind of a sad part of hand. Asia for sure no I've ever seen. Fantasia. Oh no, I'm sorry, look cyrillic, so shocked raining, I'm sure I have like a vhf of it. When we review we still have a vcr, you couldn't do that. You can look up. You could look up this part of mine. I mean it's, it's not it's! Not that the part that will you normally with Fantasia like the dancing hippo or Mickey and the broom, but it's still a pretty pretty memorable clean and
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Transcript generated on 2022-02-06.